Newel: Valve Is Moving To Linux Because Windows 8 Will Be A Catastrophe

Gabe Newell, the co-founder and managing director of Valve, has made a rare appearance at Casual Connect where he prophesized that Windows 8 will be a catastrophic failure for Microsoft.

Valve has already announced plans to port Steam and its games library to Linux; A decision now being justified by Newell as a precautionary move to protect the company’s business from the eminent Windows 8 failure.

“The big problem that is holding back Linux is games. People don’t realize how critical games are in driving consumer purchasing behavior,” he said.

“We want to make it as easy as possible for the 2,500 games on Steam to run on Linux as well. It’s a hedging strategy. I think Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space. I think we’ll lose some of the top-tier PC/OEMs, who will exit the market. I think margins will be destroyed for a bunch of people. If that’s true, then it will be good to have alternatives to hedge against that eventuality.”

Comments

That is all i hear from this thread. Windows 8 is not a catastrophe, already the media is looking twice of what they said bad and now going back on their word. Lets face it Windows 8 is a new era of computing and seeing how people are starting to go gaga for Surface would probably scare Gabe Nawell. People got to realized that time is changing Windows 8 will finally compete against the ipad and then some. The desktop is still there it is not neutered. The more i use Windows 8 the more i grown to love it. The media is blowing this way out of context. I am sorry that What i am saying people don't want to hear. Go ahead go to Linux We still have xbox and windows gaming. For once Microsoft is taking imitative that is going to change we use windows and its about time too!. Windows has been plague with too many inconsistencies for a very long time. With that being said I am definitely upgrading to windows 8!
As for gaming goes. I could give a rat a&%s about it. Especially when free to play is the future of gaming. EA has officially cannibalized the command & conquer franchise by going F2P. in 5 to 10 years from now. This is going to be the norm of things. Everything is going to become micro transaction based. Maybe there be full retail games in between but let face it Gaming is not the same these days

You really naive to believe this bullshit. We must come back to earth, because the true is Microsoft built his store and Valve will lose gamerz and nothing can prevent this. Therefore the idea of finding the fastest new pigeons, for the best proprietary and deprive store.

i agree with gabe but before you all jump down my throat imagine windows, with no DRM all the spent would be upgrades better . alot of windows limitations are do to drm remove it and you got a whole new work space linux has no DRM open source constant community development its a smart move in his part. im hoping windows will at some point be free so the limitations to its drm are removed and we can add and change things as we please .im not a fan boy of either they bouth have pros and cons but from the outside in when you look at the bigger picture you can see were ms is heading and i honestly don't want to go that direction .the drm battle is causing them to limit the customer experience to keep people from pirating the os but if the os was freely available no one would pirate so we could have legal copys of tiny xp {tiny w8} you get the point just a point i dont think any one has really touched sorry for my spelling if its bad have a good day

You seem to be confused regarding what DRM is. Open source/Closed source software is one thing, DRM is completely different. DRM is quite loose in windows, almost non-existant, that's why you can run pirated games, apps, music, movies in windows. Will windows ever be open source? I say, not until microsoft goes bankrupt.

There is no harm in having both Windows 7 and Linux. I have Linux Mint, and this will mean that i will use my Windows 7 option in my boot menu less often. But i think anybody with a brain will see this as a great move for the computer world. It will smarten up MS and bring deserved attention to the superior OS Linux. Everyone does realize that you can do almost anything on Linux for free that you can do on Windows, and that gap is going to continue to close until paying for an OS is just a stupid idea. But for now it makes sense to have Windows for gaming.

Havent payed for windows since win95 and don't intend to ever purchase their products again...
I feel like windows7 with the majority of services and "features" disabled is as good or BETTER than 98se.. win8 will be amazing for the average mass market... the news reports(if they are allowed to air) shortly after the release will be what hurts ms the most

I guess game developers need to figure out if they'd rather spend a portion valuable development time porting to Linux for a minority market segment because Valve promises there might be something there in the future, or if they would rather spend it making better games :/ Really, if programming and development paradigms were of a utopian standard it would be trivial to port between platforms, but for the majority of developers, it's a lengthy and expensive cycle - especially if post-release support is expected (patches, bug fixes, extra content).

It is true, Linux has been a lot more stable and a lot more adaptable to the users needs. Compared to Windows Linux is a Swiss army knife that can also turn into a helicopter, where Windows is just a fork and knife. Then add Mac OS to the mix and its nothing more then a retarded bird sitting in the corner. Yes, Windows is good for games, ironically that is the main reason windows is used by most PC users. If all the major Windows games will run on Linux then Windows would only have the busines world left to hold on to. Mac OS is just a joke, where they manage to keep people using their high end systems for programs like Final Cut Pro because it is MAC only. Given Macs are easy to use and not very likely to get a virus, they are overpriced for the lack of use their have compared to windows and Linux. If the gaming market would poularise Games on Linux we would see Windows improve because they will need to fight for the customer and might even make it a FREE OS too. In the next 10 years I think most games and software will become "Free to Play" and people will buy addons for their personal requirenments.

Linux users are the most boring, self centered, whining little female children which I have met. "But when the linux version out, on linux there is a bug... it does not run well under linux... the game is not actually available for linux".

Get a decent OS made by apple or ms and just enjoy it. Stop being the equivalent of immature goths just wanting to be different.

90% of the net is powered by Linux/UNIX 9% probably make use of MS whereas 1% make use of Apple. Apple's OSX is based on UNIX which Linux descended from, MS Windows is the lowest bar for the industry and stole UNIX code in order to build their tcp/ip stack. Furthermore Linux is far more stable than Apple and MS and unaffected by viruses or your misinformed idea of bugs.

Steam is the biggest game retailer, biggest digital retailer and Valve is one of the biggest and most influential publishers... You're entitled to your opinion but unless you want to support it with some facts you're just wrong...

First off linux has always ran better on any hardware, unlike mac and windows. Gaming through Wine has been so so, There is already native driver support for many devices and hardware. So im not seeing a problem so far. As long as Ubuntu doesnt become another bloated windows this is a win, win for gamers. Ubuntu is free to consumers. How much does windows ultimate and Mac cosst now a days? Imagine not having to pay for your os on that brand new pc? That will bring the cost down considerably. It's not that hard to port games to linux, there are already tools to do just that. Developers are strapped for time, so they never do it. Honestly Id rather be running ubuntu, than crappy windows. We deserve better than some shoddy MS product. Im with Gabe on this. How long does it take MS to fix windows after it's first release? About a year is the correct answer, otherwise it runs like shit no matter your hardware.

"How much does windows ultimate and Mac cosst now a days? Imagine not having to pay for your os on that brand new pc?" i always pirate my copies of windows because paying out the ass for a sub part OS filled with bloatware and garbage for the dumbest percentage of its users, is not worth the price of admission. tinyXP is better than win7 ultimate, and that fuckin sad.

i think it is time to dump windows!!
i lived and breathed windows since 1998!! Microsoft is trying to be windows streaming services like you tube.!! They are trying to rip the hardware out of consumers hands and put behind cloud!! i
Soon we will be paying for virtual reality hardware parts!!
Greedy companies will make this a 100% reality!!

let bill go make vaccines can help reduce world population and make some GMO food!!

lol valve is not bad at all. they're providing another platform, and they'll support win 8 too. Win 8 is just going to suck though and the market will be divided. steam is trying to patch it together enough for gamers